Men and Excuses
by rebecca-in-blue
Summary: "She didn't want to eat with him. She didn't want to have anything to do with him." My own slightly-AU take on how Eponine first met and fell in love with Marius.


Victor Hugo does show us Marius and Eponine's first encounter in the book (while they're both living in the Gorbeau House) but since we never see exactly how they meet in the play, I decided to write my own version. In this story, as in the play, Eponine is an only child.

(For my own reference: 71st fanfiction, 12th story for_ Les Miserables_.)

* * *

In Paris, she got used to a lot of things. She got used to always being hungry and going barefoot. She got used to begging for food and sleeping on hard, bare floors. She got used to dressing in rags and never being clean. Most of all, she got used to moving. Her parents were constantly dragging her from place to place, between inns and boarding-houses and spare rooms, never staying in one spot long enough for the neighbors to catch onto their cons.

The worst place they'd ever lived was a little room above a tavern where fights seemed to break out every evening. The loud sounds of shouting, breaking bottles, and slamming fists woke Eponine up at all hours of the night. They left that room after the tavern-owner who rented it to them offered a month free of rent, if he could sleep with Eponine. He'd eyed her perversely as he said this, and for a moment, her blood ran cold, for she was certain that her father would take the man up on his offer... but fortunately, her father was furious. "She's _my _daughter!" he'd screamed at the man. "_I'm_ the only man who gets to touch her!" Eponine had wanted to weep at his words – whether with relief or despair, she wasn't sure.

The Gorbeau House, the old boarding-house where they went next, was quite a step up in comparison. Their room was small and bare, and grew cold as winter set in, but at least the old landlady didn't openly leer at her. She told them the rules when they moved in – no sleeping on the stairs, no eating on the stairs, no loitering on the stairs, and anyone caught doing so would be fined extra with their rent. Eponine soon realized why it so tempting to spend time on the stairs. They were the warmest place in the building.

Her father called the old woman a slumlord, as if _he_ had any room to talk. Eponine had also gotten used to hearing her father make excuses. He was always blaming other people for his troubles – usually Eponine or her mother. _I'm a victim of circumstances_ was his favorite refrain, but he had many of them...

When he was scheming some sympathetic do-gooder out of their money: _It's their own fault for being so bloody naive._

When he was stealing from some genteel family: _They won't miss it, anyway. It's their own fault for having more than they need._

When he was stealing from people even poorer than they were: _It's their own fault for not being vigilant. I'm teaching them to be more careful, see? Hell, they should thank me._

When the police drew suspicious of him, or became outright confrontational: _I'm just trying to feed my family, officer. How else am I supposed to make ends meet? It's not like I killed anyone._

Even on the worst nights – when he drank too much, and his mood darkened, and his anger and his fists turned on Eponine and her mother – even then, it was not his fault._ Look what you made me do,_ he would say, panting, standing over her with his fists clenched. _Look what you made me do._ Those six words always made Eponine's stomach drop right to the floor.

One evening, as she saw her father's mood and breath souring, she quickly slipped out of their room before things could get bad. She knew her way around the streets, and it would be better to spend the evening out – she could hole up beneath a bridge by the Seine – and return later, after her father had fallen asleep or, more likely, passed out. But as she started down the stairs, she almost tripped over a boy sitting smack in the middle of a step near the top.

"Oh, I'm sorry, mademoiselle," he said quickly. "I'm right in your way, aren't I?" Eponine looked down and saw that beside him on the step, he had laid out a half-loaf of bread and hunk of cheese on a handkerchief. The hunger in her stomach sharpened at the sight of it. The boy gathered it up and shifted to one side, out of her way. "I was just having a bite to eat. It's warmer out here than it is in my room." He paused and looked at Eponine. "I'm Marius, by the way. You live in the room next-door to mine, don't you?"

Eponine's eyes shifted from the boy's food to his face. He did live next-door to her. She had passed him on the stairs and in the hall sometimes, but she'd never really noticed him before now. He had an unusual-looking face – freckles and big blue eyes – and Eponine couldn't decide if she thought him handsome or not.

She looked at him, but she didn't answer his question. She couldn't. The walls of this miserable place were too thin to even keep out the chill from the air outside. They were certainly too thin to muffle any noises. This boy, this Marius, must have overheard the worst of what happened when her father drank too much. Eponine suddenly felt ashamed and looked away from him, back down at the floor.

But Marius didn't seem bothered by her silence. He must have pitied her, because he tore off a hunk of his bread and held it out her. "Here, why don't you sit down," he offered politely, "and have a bite to eat?"

She was hungry, but she didn't want to eat with him. She didn't want to have anything to do with him. He had overheard too much. Eponine searched for something to say that would push him away, and then she told him flatly, "You aren't supposed to eat on the stairs."

Her father's behavior had made her think that no man ever took responsibility for his own actions, and now, she waited to hear what excuse Marius would make. Would he say that it wasn't his fault that the rooms were so cold? Would he blame their landlady for making the rule?

But Marius did none of these things. Instead, he said simply, "I know I'm not supposed to. If she fines me extra, I'll pay it."

At those words, Eponine's legs seemed to bend of their own accord, and as she sat down beside Marius on the stairs, she felt as if she was drifting lazily towards the ground, like a leaf on a warm summer breeze. As she took the bread that he was still holding out to her, she felt a strange, fluttery feeling in her heart, where there had only been bitterness and fear for so long. She heard herself telling him her name.

"I'm Eponine," she said to Marius, with a nervous smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. She had never known that it was possible to fall in love so fast.

**FIN**


End file.
